188 FROM THE ART OF BUILDING TO THE ART OF THINKING
who became freemasons and whose trade name freemasonry would
eventually include the entire masonic craft.
This evolution took shape quickly and is quite visible in the late-
fourteenth-century texts cited above. The term freemason applied in
1376 to the masons of the Company of London is indicative of the gen-
eralization of the term. On the other hand, the license of the archbishop
of Canterbury still clearly shows that distinctions existed between the
freemason, in the strict sense of the word, and the ordinary vassal
mason (lathomos).
Three centuries later a manuscript of the old charters of the
masons, the Melrose Manuscript dating from 1674, provides the defin-
itive status of the terminology used. The frequently used expression
friemason is presented as being synonymous with the expression free-
man mason (master mason) and that of frie men with freemasons.^4 This
was now the common application of the generic term freeman or free
burgess that was used in guilds' statutes to designate masters.
The Statutes of the MasonsEnglish authors, notably Robert Freke Gould, have believed the found-
ing of the Company of the Masons of London could be established
around the year 1220. The oldest statutes that have come down to us,
however, are the Ordinance of Workers and the Statute of Workers,
which date respectively from 1349 and 1351. These set a maximum
salary rate for all kinds of workers, including masons. The statute, writ-
ten in French, mentions "un mestre mason de franche-pere," who
draws a higher salary than an ordinary mason.
The Ordinances of the Masons of York (1352) appeared during
that same time and was composed in Latin: Ordinacio facto pro cemen-
tariis et ceteris operatis fabrico. These were revised in 1370 (in a text
written in Old English) and in 1409 (in Latin).^5 They concern the con-
struction of the cathedral of Saint Paul, regulating work (referring to an
Inspector of the Work) and insisting on respect for customs. They also
mention as a meeting place the logium fabricoe (craftsmen's lodge) and
insist on the need for an oath of loyalty and reliability. The rule in fact
mandated a mason "to swear on the Bible that he would sincerely and